Hey Jude

I'm not much of a Beatles fan, but I found this flow chart entertaining.

Desire

"Too often, the thing you want most is the one thing you can't have. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. But as tough as wanting something can be. The people who suffer the most, are those who don't know what they want."

I hate to admit it, but I may have seen an episode or two of Grey's Anatomy. Even more I hate to admit there are quotes from the show that make a lot of sense. Such is the case with the episode I watched today. I watched an episode today that ended with the above quote. It got me thinking. What are the things that I desire? What are the things that I want most in life? Do I even really know what I want?

I desire to go back to school. I desire to find someone special and start a family. I desire to have a career that I enjoy and provides a good living.

Lately I've been have a really hard time with life. Actually, life has taken me out back, smacked me around a bit, and now refers to me as Susan. I'm sure things could be worse. I'm not starving or homeless. Yet the things I desire seem to be so far out of reach. I've started to wonder if I'll ever have any of the things I want. I have the sickening feeling that I'm going to end up alone, with no education, and an $11 an hour job. The thought of a wasted life kills me. This is not the life I want, but I don't know how to keep it from happening

These lyrics from the song "Ball & Chain" by Social Distortion communicate exactly how I feel.
"Times are hard, getting harder. I'm born to lose and destined to fail."

I'm Not Nearly This Creative

I found this surfing online last night. It made me smile.



Who knew you could do so much with post it notes? Apparently this guy did.

"I Thought They Smelled Bad On The Outside!"

One of the best scenes from The Empire Strikes Back is when Han Solo has to save Luke Skywalker on the planet Hoth. Luke has just escaped the Wampa, an alien ice monster set on eating our hero. After his escape, Luke is wounded and stranded in the middle of a ice planet with no shelter. Luckily for him, Han Solo comes to the rescue. After finding Luke, Han Solo's Tauntaun dies from exposure to the cold. So Han Solo must improvise on the best way to keep Luke alive and warm. The scene I'm talking about starts at the 3:15 mark on the clip.



What a cool scene! As a kid I liked the sound effects of the Tauntaun innards spilling out as Han Solo sliced it open. Anyway, the purpose of this post is to point out there are still fun and creative ways to make money off of Star Wars. The folks over at ThinkGeek have come up with Tauntaun Sleeping Bag. Their description of the bag says:

This high-quality sleeping bag looks just like a Tauntaun, complete with saddle, internal intestines and glowing lightsaber zipper pull.

It looks just like a real Tauntaun!

It's the intestines that are the key in keeping the kids warm at night.

Okay, this product isn't actually available or even in production. It has become so popular and requested by so many Star Wars fans though, the people at ThinkGeek are trying to get all of the permissions and licensing required to sell these wonderful pieces of nostalgia. I think it's a great idea.

My Camera Breaking Butt Story

Last week my friend Elisa came for a visit from Utah. While she was here we did all sorts of fun stuff like going out to dinner, attending a wedding reception, having a barbecue, breaking a pinata, and bowling.

While on the way to the bowling alley, I decided to act a little immature. I stole Elisa's phone from her purse and hid it under my leg. She thought she dropped it or left it at the restaurant where we had lunch. I silently snickered to myself as she had someone else call it, but I successfully muffled the ringing. She eventually figured out I had her phone. After a little obligatory taunting, I returned it.

After our bowling game we were paying for our respective games, when I discovered that my phone was now missing. I know I probably deserved it. I searched around for it, but it was nowhere to be found. I figured one of the girls, Elisa, Tabi, or Shelby, had taken it. Although I wasn't sure which girl. So in order to get my phone back, I started systematically taking their electronic devices to trade for my phone. My plan was to use their property as ransom for my phone.

I began with Tabi's cell phone, probably because she was the easiest target. Then I managed to get Elisa's cell phone and camera through some mis-direction. Then the girls threw a wrench into the plan. They had somehow stolen my friend Jon's cell phone. Jon eventually got Shelby's cell phone, which meant we had all three of the girls cell phones and a camera. Then I took Tabi's car keys. So I had three cell phones and a set of car keys in my front pockets and I placed the camera in my back pocket. Jon got his cell phone back by wrestling it away from Shelby.

I told the girls that I would willingly trade all three cell phones, a camera, and the car keys for my cell phone. We were all acting pretty juvenile at this point and had to have my friend Adrian (a neutral party) act at the go between for the trade. All seemed right in the world again until Elisa turned on her camera. This is what it looked like.

Apparently this is what a camera looks like after I sit on in.

I felt so bad I had broken the screen. It turned out Elisa's camera had been a Christmas gift from her mom, which made me feel even worse. I told Elisa I would replace it. So we made a trip to Wal-mart and found a new camera. They didn't have the exact camera there but we found a comparable one that she liked.

The moral of the story: Don't sit on stolen digital cameras while involved in a gender war at an ice cream shop.

What the %$#@!?

Since last night, I have realized a few things that have been a little annoying to me. They're not enough to ruin my day, but they're still annoying. I figured the best place to vent about these things would be right here on the great big world wide web. Heck, maybe even someone will read this.

First up on my list of annoyances is the dinner I attempted to make last night. Every Tuesday I have a couple of friends over and I make dinner. Last nights main dish was to be stuffed pork chops. I've made them once before and they turned out well. I thought this time would be just the same. I placed the pork chops in a brine over night, made the stuffing, and was ready with my cooking plan of attack. When I went to get the pork chops out of the brine, I discovered the salt for the brine hadn't dissolved. I didn't think too much of it, and kept going. I then struggled actually getting the stuffing into the pork chops, but eventually succeeded. I was ready to cook them up. I placed them in the pan and began cooking on medium heat. When they were golden brown and delicious I figured they were done. I checked, and they still were a little raw on the inside. I kept cooking and eventually they became blackened stuffed pork chops. And here is the kicker, they still weren't cooked all the way. How in the world can you burn something and still have it raw at the same time? So frustrating.

Next I was watching SportsCenter and found out the quarterback of the Denver Broncos will get the trade he wants. He got his feelings hurt and now he doesn't want to play anymore. What a whinny baby. He's such cry baby that he won't even answer calls from the team offices, coach, or owner. Choosing to ignore them instead. That sounds real professional to me. I'm sure that makes a wonderful statement to any other teams that might want him. I hope Denver trades him to Detroit and he's stuck on a bad team for the rest of his career. On a side note, now my team needs a new quarterback. It'll take a while for a new quarterback to learn a new offense and we'll probably miss the playoffs for a fourth straight year. Thanks for nothing Mr. Whinny Baby quarterback.

This morning I woke up to see an overcast sky. I checked the weather and it said the high today would be 39 degree. 39 degrees! It's April. It's supposed to be spring time. Two weeks ago it was a warm sunny 70 degrees. Now it's freaking 39 degrees. It's not supposed to be close to freezing with a chance of snow. I'm a warm weather person and this cold cloudy weather is really starting to suck.

The weather leads me to my next annoyance. My car heater has decided to crap out on my again. For the fourth time. I've flushed out the heater hoses and even had the water pump changed. Still, my car heater's favorite pass time it to blow freezing cold air from outside. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to replace the heater core. There's another couple hundred bucks that will be sunk into the money pit also known as my car. Lame.

Speaking of cars, I went to fill up on gas this morning on my way to work. It was such a pleasant surprise to see that gas has gone up to $2 a gallon. Not. I don't know about anyone else, but during these lousy economic times, rising gas prices are not something I want to see. Do the oil companies not have anything better to do than to stick it to Joe Public? I am so not excited to see what gas prices will rise to when the summer comes. Looks like I won't be taking any road trips.

Dog Hero

I came across this video and was amazed at this dog. It tugged at my heart strings a little bit. I wonder how much animals really understand about the value of life. It even has a happy ending.